Lighting

[GoGuppy]

G'day all

I'd like to set up a new 3' x 1.5' x 1.5' planted tank with rainbows and other tropicals, using the CO2 system from my 80 litre tank, but this time with decent metal halide lighting. The new tank will have a water volume of about 180 litres.

As I've never used metal halides before, any suggestions in this regard would be appreciated, eg

..for two lights how many watts should each be?
..height suspended above the water level?
..colour, ie degree K?
..also, I don't want to hang the lights from the ceiling, so any suggestions on where I could get two brackets, or bent posts that I could fix to the back of the cabinet, to hang the lights from?

Any other tips on the use of metal halide lighting would be appreciated.

Cheers

[masterid]

The Aquarium Lighting (http://www.agritura.com/index.php/cat/c373_Lighting.html) should be a compact, 12w lighting strip - an affordable, modular design which gives the aquarist the flexibility to add on modules as required.

My friend has such Aquarium-Lighitng in the following combinations:-

Single: 1 x 12w aquarium lighting strip

Up to 50,000 hours lamp life (equivalent to 6x standard fluorescent lighting (http://www.agritura.com/index.php/cat/c373_Lighting.html)) with no significant deterioration in spectral quality and less than a 20% reduction in light output.

Highest useable and visible output of light per unit of energy consumed (all visible and directed). Tests have shown that a 12w Lighting produces up to 33% more illumination at 50cm than a 24w compact fluorescent aquarium fitting.

Good Luck :-)

[Woodsy]

You should be able to get 140W globes at around 6000K at any online store. The only other way I've seen halides suspended other than from the roof, is on fabricated poles that are fixed to your base unit. If you don't know anyone who can fabricate them for you, or can't be bothered looking, ADA make them for their halide lamps, maybe you can customise one for your application.
Hope you find something that works mate, can't wait to see the pics!

[Mick John]

Perhaps Aluminium. If you don't want to buy it new try a Scrap Yard. This is what I used on my last set up. Worked very well. Good luck GG.